Seward Park is located in zip code 10002, where the majority of the population is Asian and White. According to the U.S. Census, 35,155 of the 37,914 Asian residents are Chinese, a whopping 93 percent. In addition, since Seward Park is located in the western half of the Lower East Side, closer to where Chinatown has spread, the usage by the Chinese rather than the White is more pronounced.
Another important aspect to look at is the increasing number of immigrant groups coming into this area. The Lower East Side has experienced a steadily growing stream of immigrants entering from several different countries. The graphs below depict data from the U.S. Census that support these claims.
Statistics show that 50% of the residents living in the Lower East Side were not born in America. Most of the foreign born population is from Asia, and most of that group is from China. Lastly, the U.S. Census also measured the language fluency of people in 10002, and the results are very telling.
Due to the strong cultural ties that the immigrant community maintains and the continuous flow of new immigrants in the Lower East Side, almost more than half of all foreign born immigrants reported that they did not speak English well or at all. There even exist a few native born Americans who have extremely little knowledge of English, but are fluent in Spanish or Asian languages.
Origins in China:
From the conversations we heard and from the people we interviewed, there appears to be a large number of Chinese people from the province Guangdong and Fujian. This may not be completely accurate since we did not obtain a large sample. However, when we asked one of the park regulars, Master Thomas, about which province most of the Chinese people immigrate from he responded, “That’s a good question…I’m not so sure myself.” Hence, it does not appear that Seward Park attracts only one group of Chinese people.
